"Modern LInux Kernel Mitigations" by Ray Veldkamp and Matthew Kurz, BSides Canberra 2023

The Linux kernel has long been an attractive target for attackers aiming to compromise systems, as a result the kernel community are constantly responding by introducing security mitigations and locking down attack surfaces. Linux distributions will often weigh up the impact of enabling these features, with the impact to usability and performance of the operating system, resulting in a fragmented approach to adoption of upstream Linux kernel security features. This talk will discuss a range of recently introduced security features in the kernel, which attempt to complicate the exploit development process, and provide an overview of the state of adoption in major distributions.

[@user-mm5ry3ef6l]

Very interesting. I didn't realise that distro's could determine which mitigation would get loaded or not. I would have thought that a security fix/mitigation of any kind would have had precedence. I suppose it depends on how serious the security leak is.